Selfness is an essential fact of life. The thought of nonselfness, precise sameness is terrifying. — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
In the fields I know best, among the life sciences, it is required that the most expert and sophisticated minds be capable… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
We can take some gratification at having come a certain distance in just a few thousand years of our existence as language… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
We are educated to be amazed by the infinite variety of life forms in nature. We are, I believe, only at the… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
I don't want to be reincarnated, that's for sure. When you've had rewarding experiences in your life - a loving family, friends… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
The uniformity of earth's life, more astonishing than its diversity, is accountable by the high probability that we derived, originally, from some… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
“We are, perhaps uniquely among the earth’s creatures, the worrying animal. We worry away our lives, fearing the future, discontent with the… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
We are a spectacular, splendid manifestation of life. We have language. . . . We have affection. We have genes for usefulness,… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
We are spectacular splendid manifestations of life. We have language. We have affection. And finally, and perhaps best of all, we have… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
...the life of the planet began the long, slow process of modulating and regulating the physical conditions of the planet. The oxygen… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
“The uniformity of the earth's life, more astonishing than its diversity, is accountable by the high probability that we derived, originally, from… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
Mistakes are at the very base of human thought, embedded there, feeding the structure like root nodules. If we were not provided… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
As a species, taking all in all, we are still too young, too juvenile, to be trusted. We have spread across the… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
The commas are the most useful and usable of all the stops. It is highly important to put them in place as… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
“It is in our collective behavior that we are the most mysterious. We won't be able to construct machines like ourselves until… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
I cannot think of a single field in biology or medicine in which we can claim genuine understanding, and it seems to… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
It is not a simple life to be a single cell, although I have no right to say so, having been a… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
“Statistically, the probability of any one of us being here is so small that the mere fact of our existence should keep… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
We owe our lives to the sun... How is it, then, that we feel no gratitude? — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
The gift of language is the single human trait that marks us all genetically, setting us apart from the rest of life. — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
As a people, we have become obsessed with Health. There is something fundamentally, radically unhealthy about all this. We do not seem… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
In real life, every field of science is incomplete, and most of them - whatever the record of accomplishment during the last… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
Altruism has always been one of biology's deep mysteries. Why should any animal, off on its own, specified and labeled by all… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
We hanker to go on, even in the face of plain evidence that long, long lives are not necessarily pleasurable in the… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
Maybe there is a single spot, just one, where living organisms are holed up. Maybe so, but if so this would be… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
“It is hard to feel affection for something as totally impersonal as the atmosphere, and yet there it is, as much a… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
“We are endowed with genes which code out our reaction to beavers and otters, maybe our reaction to each other as well. We are… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
We are a spectacular, splendid manifestation of life. We have language. . . . We have affection. We have genes for usefulness, and usefulness… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
“It is not a simple thing to decide where we fit, for at one time or another in our lives we manage to organize… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
It is in our genes to understand the universe if we can, to keep trying even if we cannot, and to be enchanted by… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
If an idea cannot move on its own, pushing it doesn't help; best to let it lie there. — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
I do not agree with this century's fashion of running down the human species as a failed try, a doomed sport. At our worst,… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
It would seem to me... an offense against nature, for us to come on the same scene endowed as we are with the curiosity,… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
The drive to be useful is encoded in our genes. But when we gather in very large numbers, as in the modern nation-state, we… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
I would send the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach into outer space on the Voyager spacecraft. But that would be boasting. — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
“The future is too interesting and dangerous to be entrusted to any predictable, reliable agency. We need all the fallibility we can get. Most… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
